In just a few days, HP’s first TouchPad units will be showing off their webOS sexiness on retail shelves across the U.S. — and then heading quickly to the U.K., Ireland, France, and Germany. Canadians (yours truly included) will be able to pick up their 9.7″ slabs on July 15th.

HP has done a good job so far of building buzz for the TouchPad, and demo units have already arrived at some U.S. Walmart stores. And I’m not talking about cheesy dummy units, either — HP’s loaned out fully-functional TouchPads so that customers can get a little hands-on time with webOS and see what it’s all about.

As slick as the TouchPad looks, some prospective tablet owners might think that a (roughly) 10-inch tablet is a bit too bulky. There aren’t many options out there right now for smaller, full-fledged tablets. e-Reader options abound (like the Kindle, Nook, and Kobo), but apart from the HTC Flyer and BlackBerry PlayBook there isn’t much to choose from in the 7 or 8-inch range.

That could very well change later this summer, according to a report from Taiwan Economic News. In addition to reporting that Taiwan’s Inventec will be churning out nearly half a million TouchPads per month for HP, the posting revealed that there’s a more diminutive, 7-inch TouchPad due out in August. No hardware specifications were revealed, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this smaller model sporting internals that are virtually identical to those of its big brother — like a dual core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and front and rear cameras.

HP announced back in February of 2011 that it planned to offer webOS in small (Veer), medium (Pre 3), and large (TouchPad) form factors. I suppose that pegs the new 7-inch TouchPad as extra-medium.